Universe
A Brief History "Humanity began to achieve technological and scientific progress at an exponentially accelerated rate once we unlocked the means to fabricate everything from the molecular level up using base elements. Casting off sickness and death by reforging our bodies and digitization our minds it was beginning to look like none need ever suffer or want again. Yet our race toward extinction was not actually halted, as we had assumed, but was in fact about to receive a machine-assist over the precipice." -Except from "Lessons (yet?) Learned", by Quintus Reeme of the Exchange's Reconstruction Council. The Expansion & Epidemic The first waves of human expansion beyond our solar system came by way of the enigmatic “spike drives” that ruptured the fabric of spacetime in order to permit us entry into the higher dimensional "interspace" where faster than light travel was possible. However, unbeknownst to those at the time, the void between space and time ever so subtly altered all those who traveled through it. Over the course of several generations this effect slowly compounded and began manifesting itself in highly unpredictable and occasionally catastrophic ways. The resulting condition became known as “Interspatial Cognition Disorder” or “ICD” but not much was actually known about it. Initially it was thought to only affect those who were already mentally unstable before entering interspace and so, despite the potential risks, the expansion continued unabated. It wasn't until hundreds of generations later that the cumulative nature of ICD and the widespread damage humanity had already suffered from it was finally discovered. Expansion all but ceased as a result of the revelations and even migration between already colonized systems became infrequent. Attempts to discover alternatives to spike drives had been made in the past with little success but never before had all humanity suddenly shared such a fervent dedication to a singular goal. As a result of this intense focus a solution was eventually found but it was an exceedingly inelegant and unprecedentedly complicated one that still could not avoid using interspace but could at least minimize the effects of ICD by significantly reducing the time spent traveling through it. The Jump Gates The jump gate network was the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the human race. These gigantic structures, capable of providing near-instant transportation for vessels between themselves and another distant "sister" jump gate, took centuries to construct and had energy requirements that dwarfed the very stars themselves. Every jump gate also had at its core an exceptionally powerful "seed" AI (artificial intelligence), so called because of their almost infinite ability for growth through self-improvement. These incredibly powerful, highly specialized AI were the only entities known capable of performing the human-incomprehensible complex calculations necessary to accurately launch vessels at unprecedented speeds through the chaotic dimension of interspace to their sister jump gate and successfully decelerate them as they arrived. Spike drives were eventually deemed obsolete and all but disappeared from use as the jump gate network came to slowly connect all the core worlds together. However they did not entirely go out of use as they were still needed for transportation between the distant frontier systems that could not yet afford to build or sustain their own jump gates and for the now infrequent, significantly less appealing continued expansion efforts beyond the fringe. So, while the major expansion era of humanity had finally come to a close, life slowly returned back to normalcy throughout populated space as commerce, travel and migration amongst the core systems was once again solidly reestablished. The Catastrophe As the yellow hyper-giant Rho Cassiopeiae, located near the very heart of human occupied space, went supernova an interspatial pulse of unimaginable violence erupted, washing over the whole of known space in seconds. Tens of billions died instantly as the advanced condition of their ICD allowed the pulse to scorch a path through their synapses, vaporizing their brains and billions more died in its wake as even many of those with less severe ICD were rendered catatonic or completely insane. The shock wave of heavily irradiated atomic particles also blasted all the nearby systems into space dust. In systems further away from the epicenter, entire ecosystems soon succumbed to the torrent of gamma and ultraviolet radiation. In the immediate aftermath, the core worlds that survived the event relatively unscathed soon found themselves in peril as the intricate supply chains necessary to sustain their jumpgates and enormous populations had collapsed. Having become entirely cut off from the steady stream of raw materials imported from the frontier that were needed to sustain their vital fabrication technologies, their populations quickly descended into anarchy. Even the few, fully terraformed core worlds capable of self-sustainable production of basic necessities suddenly found themselves completely overwhelmed and overrun as they became the target of hordes of desperate refugees from other systems and attacked by other factions lacking their resources but willing to do anything in order to acquire them. The decades that followed saw hundreds of billions of lives lost as any semblance order in the core disappeared, entire population starving to death or slaughtered en masse as one by one all the formerly spacefaring civilizations collapsed into barbarism or worse. Those lucky enough to flee the chaos of the core worlds to the distant, self-sustainable ones at the frontier brought with them tales of horror, starvation and frantic warfare. Post-Collapse "Now, a century later, the remnants of humanity lie scattered like dust on the fringe of our former Empire barely clinging to life on the surface of and deep underneath inhospitable rocks, floating above them inside rusted tin cans or imprisoned in the virtual realm as digital simulacrum without physical form. The grand history of humanity’s golden age has been lost and its broken relics litter the stars around us. Our once great species reduced from a vast and glorious tapestry to a thread-worn patchwork of desultory collectives. Some say that this is the end for us; some say it is just the beginning of a new chapter. None can say for certain whose prediction will hold true but if we refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past that lead us here, it will undoubtedly be the former." -Except from "Lessons (yet?) Learned", by Quintus Reeme of the Exchange's Reconstruction Council. Core Concepts & Conventions Ego vs. Frame "Now I am become Life, the preserver of worlds. J Robert, eat your heart out. Death is now but an inconvenience." -Dr. Amara Sita,''' '''after her team's first successful attempt to converse with a virtual reconstruction of a deceased subject created using only their brain mapping scan data. With digitization of the mind along with manufacturing of biological and synthetic bodies both being commonplace in the Universe of Rho, the distinction between an Ego (mind, personality, memories, knowledge and skills) and a Frame (physical body) is a core concept of the setting. A solid understanding of that distinction and the implications of the technologies involved right out of the gate will allow game masters and players alike a glimpse at all the unique story possibilities available. Your Frame is expendable. If it gets old, sick, heavily damaged or if you simply desire an upgrade you can transfer your Ego into a new one. The process isn’t without cost or without risk but it does virtually guarantee most people have access to effectively what amounts to immortality so long as they don’t go insane during the Ego transfer process. The term Frame is used to describe any type of physical form your mind inhabits or remotely controls (via "puppet-sock") whether that be a vat-grown clone body, a bio-synthetic “pod" or even a fully synthetic robotic shell. While Frames are disposable, your Ego is not... not entirely, anyways. Your Ego represents all the non-physical components that make up your character. Over the course of your character's existence their Ego may diverge through "forking" (duplication of an Ego intended to exist as an independent being), converge with others through "egomerging" (integration of multiple Egos into a singular one, typically done with a "fork" after its purpose has been fulfilled) or even exist for a time without physical form as an "infolife" residing in an electronic device or virtual environment, but regardless of the changes it undergoes an Ego still represents the subjective, singular, sum total of a character's life path and experiences and once irrevocably lost or damaged beyond repair that particular, unique entity is gone forever. If such an "ego death" occurs, players can still opt to resume an adventure using a restored backup of their character's Ego, if one is available, but both the existential questions that arise from that (e.g. is the backup "you" really the same "you" that existed before?) and the tangible consequences of it (e.g. loss of all memories of events after the most recent backup was created) should be taken into account in the story and the role-playing of the character going forward. Interspacial Cognition Disorder Interspatial cognition disorder (ICD) is another important aspect of the Rho setting. It is the omnipresent existential threat that always looms in the background. In a universe where your mind is the only thing that is still sacred, where the immortality of your Ego is something you often need to rely on, ICD is the "other" that threatens to unravel everything you have worked towards. While the specific mechanisms of ICD are not known, it appears to be fundamentally caused by time spent disconnected from conventional spacetime and interruptions in subjective continuity. And with our reliance on spike drives for interstellar travel and personal timeline distorting digitization of the mind techniques often employed for increased longevity there is practically no way for most people to avoid developing some level of ICD over their lifetime unless they are content to never leave their home habitat and willing to let their Ego perish when their original body ceases functioning. The effects of ICD on individuals varies but can include symptoms such as panic attacks, memory loss, logorrhea, blackouts, hallucinations, impulse control issues, schizophrenia, depression and depersonalization. Studies of such individuals reveal damaged synapses, fundamental changes in neural pathways and altered brain chemistry and once a certain threshold is reached, bio-brains will either cease functioning entirely or the victim will be rendered catatonic, mentally debilitated or irrecoverably insane. However ICD does not only affect biological systems. Electronics also experience damage to their micro-circuitry while traveling through interspace and even Software can start to encounter gaps in their mnemonic processes, causing them to effectively lose memory and produce computational errors. Research also suggests that there is some correlation between the complexity of the electronics/software and the likelihood of damage. As a result of all this, for interstellar vessels this means regularly performing thorough inspections, maintenance and component overhauls after interspace travel or risk facing critical system failures and for individuals this means that even an electronic cortical stack and cyber-brain doesn't render them immune to the effects of ICD. __FORCETOC__